Cahallahan Visits the Ocean (by Chuck Joy)

Chuck Joy at the Literary Cafe – photo by Chandra Alderman

Cahallahan Visits the Ocean

1.
the music you can’t hear
we’re in New England
it’s a cold spring

when you read these words
how many years from now
you will appreciate our success
limiting global warming
strengths-based

today my work
is take a walk,
I’ve dressed the part
and approach my task with all the dread and eagerness
of a short shift in the clinic
where everything I fear is me

2.
we’re in the land of cedar shake shingle
Rick’s Fresh Seafood
a tumbledown cannery replaced by condos
and empty cathedrals
say hello to the Atlantic coast

taste the salt on the sea breeze
watch the glass on the sidewalk
enjoy the locals, their accent
just don’t stop, we’re here to walk

visioning Cody, from a parking lot
hey man, you’re a sight for sore eyes!
this is us, we’re here for a short time
all this sweetness gone in one heartbeat
these feet, their sneakers
the opportunity to make straight one more path

3.
the music we can’t hear
plays on, still playing, all dramatic screeches
or dolorous sonorities soon returned
to the beat, the big beat

a little love and affection
in everything you do
will make the world a better place
with or without you

our parking space left empty for a suitable interval
like Carmichael’s in Greendale, one year
our consciousness limitless now, nowhere, everywhere
we are the music you can’t hear

* * * * *

Chuck Joy of Erie, Pennsyl;vania, has authored All Smooth (Destitute Press) and Key West Quartet (Edinboro Book Art Collective).  He has read at every Snoetry, the Confluence, two International Festivals, The Erie Book Store, Poets’ Hall, Mac’s Backs, and Woodlawn Diner. His new chapbook, Every Tiger Wants To Sing, is now available from Poets’ Hall Press.

See and hear Chuck this July 7th 2014 during the Monday at Mahall’s Poetry & Prose series in Lakewood, Ohio.

That Dancing Mood (by Chuck Joy)

Chuck Joy at the Literary Cafe – photo by Chandra Alderman

That Dancing Mood

here comes the weekend
Friday six thirty, we could be anywhere
we choose to be here
Taos New Mexico, west end of town

the yard of a brewpub
swept clean between tables under pinetrees and cottonwoods
we are sitting at a table
visitors from Colorado

the trees are hung with red
and yellow lanterns, the sky
purple, silver stars, one falls

around the bar itself, inside the brewhouse
a log structure with big porches
poets are gathering, we saw the poster
Poetry Open Mic Every Friday Night

he says, Wow this is Taos
she says, Can you imagine?

we watch the poets
pulling up tables, notice a podium behind a railing on a porch
now a nice stage

the host, blue bellbottoms, brown jacket, fringe, wide-brimmed hat
a moustache, looks like Richard Brautigan

these poets are hot
several women, older men
some apparently Native American
their voices trumpets in the darkness
doo-wop prophets, blowing their lines to a chorus of uh huhs and oh yeahs
A very demonstrative audience, she laughed

awkwardly he stands
pushing his bench back, Let’s dance
extending his hand, she grabs it

that’s where we leave them
dancing on the dirt floor 
 



* * * * *

Chuck Joy authored All Smooth (Destitute Press) and Key West Quartet (Edinboro Book Art Collective).  He has read at every Snoetry, the Confluence, two International Festivals, The Erie Book Store, Poets’ Hall, Mac’s Backs, Mahall’s 20 Lanes and Woodlawn Diner. His new chapbook, Every Tiger Wants To Sing, is now available from Poets’ Hall Press.

Nine Ways (by Chuck Joy)

Chuck Joy at the Literary Cafe – photo by Chandra Alderman

Nine Ways

          1.

this turbulent mystery

life, unfolds like a metal flower

I’ll tell you what

living in the present means

sucking every drop of celebrity

from simply pulling words together

or even working by the hour

          2.

even sleeping, my sister

making the best of this hand we’ve been dealt

moving the cards around

staring out over their tops

at the dealer, at the handsome stranger across the table

I love it here in Las Vegas

          3.

a lonely man

probably grew up in foster care or

never met the right girl

sent himself a greeting card

it read, remember

when you think something positive

something you admire or

it feels good

always say the words out loud

          4.

words, the molecular basis

of language as chemistry

at least in English

how do you describe

the bow-wave curving from the prow

of your particular Wolverine

in Urdu or Swahili?

          5.

love is a word, also

an experience, so is sex

sometimes I have to bury my heart

and my penis so deep into the present moment

only my eyes are left

but it feels good

          6.

hate is another word, red lights

flashing at the scene of an accident

blood splashed on wet pavement

a slender body oddly sprawled

halfway on the sidewalk

somebody’s daughter, her future

over, the driver nowhere

and everywhere, drunk as a lord

laughing at the misfortune of others

          7.

a daughter is the apple of her father’s eye

Dean Martin said that, I think

in fact Dean Martin crooned that line

to a silver microphone

in the backroom at Patsy’s Paradise Club

all low ceilings and red tablecloths

on Bloomfield Road, where the Sinatras

were celebrating Nancy’s christening

          8.

cousins and lovers were busy

all over the city, reading

the newspaper at Starbucks

delivering pizza

to the Lutheran Hospital, performing

antique drama, dreaming perfect

behind-the-back lay-ups

          9.

all of us, mutts

and blokes, each at the center

of our perceptions, exploring

the full range of human emotions

sometimes lost between the intentions

of others and our projections

but with the effort that is no effort

mostly found 



* * * * *

Chuck Joy authored All Smooth (Destitute Press) and Key West Quartet (Edinboro Book Art Collective).  He has read at every Snoetry, the Confluence, two International Festivals, The Erie Book Store, Poets’ Hall, Mac’s Backs, Mahall’s 20 Lanes and Woodlawn Diner. 

Every Appearance (by Chuck Joy)

Chuck Joy at the Literary Cafe – photo by Chandra Alderman

Every Appearance

we earn this stage every appearance
an entire existence, every artifice
convenient falsehood burned impossibly away
best to be yourself, skinless carcass
bubbling consciousness, invisible
minimized, the membrane or filter
between the poem and the audience



* * * * *

Chuck Joy authored All Smooth (Destitute Press) and Key West Quartet (Edinboro Book Art Collective).  He has read at every Snoetry, the Confluence, two International Festivals, The Erie Book Store, Poets’ Hall, Mahall’s 20 Lanes and Woodlawn Diner.  He’ll also be at Mac’s Backs in Cleveland Heights March 29.

Chuck Joy reads three poems at Snoetry – 16 January 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr3gI9Lar0Q

Poetry written and performed by Chuck Joy

Filmed during Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest — a Lix and Kix production
at the Last Wordsmith Book Shoppe in North East, Pennsylvania on 16 January 2010
(photography & editing by John Burroughs, a.k.a. Jesus Crisis)

Chuck Joy is a northwestern Pennsylvania poet, co-creator of Poetry Scene at the Erie Book Store, chairman of the Erie County Poetry Committee, and co-chair of the Art Committee for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is also the author of Dreamville and Furthur and partner with Kurt Sahlmann in Enhanced Poetry, including for their CD Live @ The Jive!

Order that CD here.